Construction of wind turbine farms across the globe has not resulted in a decrease in the need for conventional generation systems. They have been an expensive boondoggle whose only function is to enrich those who build them and those who give the public money to those who build them.

The breakdown of the operating hours of wind power output shows just how pathetic wind energy really is.

In his Huffington Post article titled, ‘Executive Order M855‘, Dennis Santiago says it’s a dumb move to change the classification of green-tip ammunition to make it illegal. Santiago actually has his facts straight. His writing style is difficult because he is so verbose but he is knowledgeable about his subject.

First he says the move will not make police officers safer:

There is no evidence or analysis shown in the BATFE’s proposal that indicates that its considerable technical division did one iota of analysis to determine whether this ammunition poses a unique and extraordinary threat to the soft armor of law enforcement officers any different from other AR-15 ammunition that will continue to be available.

The answer is that it does not. Whether you examine 5.56/.223 ammunition from a muzzle energy or penetration energy concentration perspective, at urban law enforcement engagement ranges, all of it does the same thing. It all hits with around three times the energy of a .357 magnum with about four times the soft armor defeat potential or “burn through efficiency” of true pistol ammunition. It doesn’t matter if it’s Vietnam era M193 55 grain ammunition, M-16A2 era M855/SS109 62 grain ammunition, or borrowed from the competition world Mk262 Mod 0/1 77 grain ammunition. In a gunfight with an opponent one and one half car lengths from you, it all performs about the same. All of it will defeat Level IIIA soft body armor.”

He worries that this move by BATFE will alienate gun owning voters.

As the 2016 election cycle begins, one hopes that issues such as the nation’s continued struggle towards economic recovery and our foreign policy strategy to deal with a world we seem less and less able to positively influence should dominate our selection of the next president. Into this tenuous hope for a more cogent debate, the BATFE has introduced a proposed executive branch rule regarding ammunition that will likely pivot the election cycle back towards the same driving forces that caused so many blue states to turn red in the November 2014 midterm.

Fueled by a seeming need to create a “we’re doing something,” optical illusion, the executive branch threatens to raise the hunger of the gun lobby to fight even harder for its political values in the critical opening phases of the primaries by infuriating gun owners.”

He’s right about all of it. It’s worth a read even though it is a bit tedious.

This reference is an expansion on the comments of Pastor Martin Niemöller who was an opponent of Adolf Hitler and spent seven years in Nazi concentration camps. His famous quote about Nazis is this:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Shapiro is warning us about what our President is doing and he is right.

First, they came for the Jews, and Obama did not speak up, because he was not a Jew. Then, they came for the Christians, and Obama did not speak up, because he is not a Christian. Now, they come for Western Civilization.

And Obama will not speak up because he is not an advocate of Western Civilization. He is a believer that Western Civilization is exploitative; that terrorism is caused by imbalances between the West and the rest; that if only the West would minimize its arrogance on the world stage, peace would result. And so we cut the military. And so we make way for an Iranian nuclear program. And so we hamstring Israel and Egypt and insist that ISIS is not Islamic.

They are coming for the Jews. They are coming for the Christians. They are coming for Western Civilization. By the time the radical Muslims come for those who think like President Obama, there will be no one left to speak out.”

Self-important college students want their grades improved. They ask for better grades. They have gotten them in earlier schools. College is supposed to be different.

Dear Student: No, I Won’t Change the Grade You Deserve

For many professors—especially faculty without tenure or the job security that comes with it—this poses a problem. Pleas to re-evaluate work can draw professors into annoying confrontations—or force them to explain the mechanics of grading to students, and sometimes angry parents, department chairs, or deans.

So I decided to ask a few professors, a learning consultant, and a graduate student how they would respond to these requests. Let’s say a student who received a C grade on a paper asks you to reread it and change their grade because they “worked so hard on it.” How would you respond?”

Here is one:

Dear Student Who Must Be Out Of Their Mind:

I hope all is well with you. Are you, by any chance, related to the student who failed my class and asked that I give them an A because they “liked the class so much?” I’m just asking because this question you’ve posed is just as silly as that one.

Pursuant to the detailed rubric provided for the assignment that we reviewed in class, the work you did on this paper was questionable. What you turned in was riddled with grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and formatting inconsistencies. Your paper didn’t respond to the prompts for the assignment at all and didn’t even reference the provided course content, let alone go beyond it in any meaningful way. The grade you received is reflective of the fact that what I got was a mash-up of poorly constructed sentences and last minute fooleywang.

And for real, I need you to focus less on the grade and more on the learning. Here’s the thing: had you focused on learning and on effectively completing the assignment, you would have gotten an A. Instead, you’re out here so focused on the grade that your submitted work was well below my expectations and your abilities.

It’s a blow to Gruber, who played a key role in the establishment of the board when it was set up to administer RomneyCare. Gruber went on to play a similar role in the passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act.

As first reported by Jon Keller at WBZ-TV, Baker “demanded and received the resignations of four members of the state Health Connector board, including MIT Professor Jonathan Gruber…Gruber was appointed to the board in 2006 by then Governor Mitt Romney and re-appointed by Governor Deval Patrick. The other three board members asked to resign – John Bertko, Rick Jakious and George Gonser – were all original Patrick appointees.”

According to the Auditor’s report, Gruber overbilled the state of Massachusetts to the tune of at least $48,000.

On December 30, Gruber submitted a bill for $65,000 to the State of Vermont: $40,000 for 80 hours of work he conducted between October 15 and November 15, billed at $500 per hour, and $25,000 for 250 hours of work performed by research assistants (plural) billed at $100 per hour.

Gruber submitted a second invoice on December 30, in the amount of $25,000 for work performed by research assistants (plural) for 250 hours of work, billed at $100 per hour, performed from November 15 to December 19.

All told, Gruber has billed the State of Vermont $290,000 for work performed on his contract. $150,000 of this billing is for work he says was performed by research assistants, $140,000 is for work he performed himself.

To date, the State of Vermont has paid Gruber $160,000–$80,000 for work he performed, and $80,000 for work he says research assistants performed.

But in his memo released today, Vermont State Auditor Hoffer says Gruber had only a single research assistant, not several. In addition, that research assistant was an employee of Gruber’s who was paid $32,000 for work perfomed in 2014, according to a W-2 Gruber provided to Hoffer.”

This is an act that allows the ATF to take your guns, ammunition, house, car, anything. All they have to do is ‘Suspect’ that you are dealing drugs. It goes around the need to convince a judge so they can get a warrant.

There are a couple things about this. First, why the ATF? Their proper title is the ‘Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’. Nowhere in their title or their charter are drugs mentioned.

Second, the hurdles they must jump to seize your property are so low as to be non-existent. They just have to say they ‘Suspect’ you of having drugs.

The revolutionaries are continuing to push. They want an armed confrontation that they can quell. They will get it, too, with moves like this.

A quick glance at the Federal Register (Vol. 80, No. 37, p. 9987-88) today reveals that Attorney General Eric Holder, who earned cautious praise last month for a small reform to the federal equitable sharing program, has now delegated authority to the Director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) to seize and “administratively forfeit” property involved in suspected drug offenses. Holder temporarily delegated this authority to the ATF on a trial basis in 2013, and today made the delegation permanent while lauding the ATF for seizing more than $19.3 million from Americans during the trial period.”

So we have a bunch of people who were meeting peacefully to talk about secession. They say that Texas is the only state that retains the right to secede. In the middle of the meeting they were interrupted by twenty ‘Armed and Armored’ police officers including some feds.

It sounds like the Sheriff went off half-cocked and violated the rights of every attendee:

You can’t just let people go around filing false documents to judges trying to make them appear in front of courts that aren’t even real courts,” said Kerr County sheriff Rusty Hierholzer, who led the operation.

He acknowledged he used a “show of force,” grouping officers from city, county state and federal law enforcement to serve a search warrant for suspicions of a misdemeanor crime. He said he had worries that some extremists in the group could become violent, citing a 1997 incident when 300 state troopers surrounded an armed Republic leader for a weeklong standoff.”

1997?

Minutes into the meeting a man among the onlookers stood and moved to open the hall door, letting in an armed and armored force of the Bryan Police Department, the Brazos County Sheriff’s Office, the Kerr County Sheriff’s Office, Agents of the Texas District Attorney, the Texas Rangers and the FBI.

In the end, at least 20 officers corralled, searched and fingerprinted all 60 meeting attendees, before seizing all cellphones and recording equipment in a Valentine’s Day 2015 raid on the Texas separatist group.”

The Ghost Gunner, which measures about a foot in each dimension. Defense Distributed

Last week FedEx told firearm-access nonprofit Defense Distributed that the company refuses to ship the group’s new tool, a computer controlled (CNC) mill known as the Ghost Gunner. Defense Distributed has marketed its one-foot-cubed $1,500 machine, which allows anyone to automatically carve aluminum objects from digital designs, as an affordable, private way to make an AR-15 rifle body without a serial number. Add in off-the-shelf parts that can be ordered online, and the Ghost Gunner would allow anyone to create one of the DIY, untraceable, semi-automatic firearms sometimes known as “ghost guns.”

Second, it has been revealed that Chicago’s police force has a secret prison.

The UK Guardian recently reported that the secret prison is an “off-the-books interrogation compound” known as Homan Square.

The Chicago police department operates an off-the-books interrogation compound, rendering Americans unable to be found by family or attorneys while locked inside what lawyers say is the domestic equivalent of a CIA black site.

The facility, a nondescript warehouse on Chicago’s west side known as Homan Square, has long been the scene of secretive work by special police units. Interviews with local attorneys and one protester who spent the better part of a day shackled in Homan Square describe operations that deny access to basic constitutional rights.”

Our President has said that Islam has had a profound effect on American history, that Muslims affected the development of our country. Shoebat says he is right. You and I know that it’s true.

Those of us who are old enough remember being taught about the slave trade in the early years of the United States. American and European ships brought black Africans to our shores but who rounded up those slaves and brought them to the ships? Muslims.

And they’re still doing it. This is an image of a slave sale in Mosul, Iraq.

Yes, Islam has had its effect on the development of the United States. It was not as positive an effect as President Obama would have us believe.

Our dear leader loves to talk about how Islam has been in the fabric of our nation since its birth. My Colleague Ted Shoebat has talked about the Barbary Pirate wars, but prior to the American Revolution the Arab Muslims of North Africa biggest economic trade was to supply Slaves all over the world of which about 5% of all African slaves ended up here in the USA/Colonies with the majority going to Central and South America as well as slaves in the MIddle East and India.”

Bill Nye, foppish self-proclaimed Science Guy, appeared on Real Time with Bill Maher this past Friday night and demonstrated why he ought to stick with his true vocation as a global-warming bedwetter.

During a panel discussion on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s suggestion that European Jews fearful for their lives should come “home” to Israel, Nye mocked the idea and blamed Jews for not being friendlier to predators who consider it a holy rite to slaughter them…”

That’s a phrase I use sometimes to describe how I make conscious choices to refrain from becoming angry about something. A couple of examples: Let’s say someone cuts me off in a parking lot and zips their car into the space I have been waiting patiently for while the former occupant clips his seat belt, starts his car, and backs out. Some people come unglued and rant at the person who ‘stole’ the space.

There is nothing to be gained by yelling and getting my blood pressure up. The man or woman who aced me out has already taken possession and I’m just going to have to look elsewhere.

There are a lot of people like the man in the image above who give in to rage. It can ruin their entire day, and, if they insult another rager, it may escalate into violence.

How about a perceived injustice? You may be passed over for an award you might have expected. You can either choose to accept that life is not fair or you can become angry and resentful.

What you choose says a lot about you.

Neither of the images above shows someone practicing mental health. They both show people who have given in to the sickness that is anger.

There are places for rage – instances where it is the right choice – but those instances are not an every day occurrence. If they are for you, you might want to rethink your anger management.

We see lack of control like this among the young, but lately we have noticed that many never seem to grow out of it. In fact, young people are being taught rage in schools by older teachers who never outgrew instant anger. There is something about rage that makes people need to express it. Who does it most?

Angry people; people who are proud to be angry and want everyone to know it.

There is also something childish about it, just as there is something adult about practicing anger management. Today we are ruled by the childish ones but there is a possibility that that may be reversing course. The 2014 election was an indication. We shall see. Don’t forget, those angry people are still teaching our kids. They are also populating the bureaucracy.

Let’s see. Would you avoid the mall? Or would you try to do what you thought was best to help ensure the safety of yourself and your loved ones while there? Mall of America has made the choice for you. They want you to stay away. They don’t allow you to choose the second option.

At least they are trying to do so. I suspect many of their customers will still choose the second option. It would work with concealed carry. It would not work so well with open carry.

It appears that terrorism has now presented a new threat in the United States, and more specifically, shopping malls.

The Somalian based terrorist group, Al Shabaab, has just released a new video calling for attacks on America’s malls. They even went as far to specifically mention the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota.”

Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson told CNN’s Gloria Borger, “If anyone is planning to go to the Mall of America today, they’ve got to be particularly careful. There will be enhanced security there, but public vigilance, public awareness and public caution in situations like this is particularly important, and it’s the environment we’re in, frankly.”

Many of my straight friends, even the most liberal, see this logic as warped. It’s one thing for them to admit that they would prefer their kids to be straight, something they’ll only begrudgingly confess. But wanting my daughter to be a lesbian? I might as well say I want her to grow up to be lactose intolerant.”

Sally is confused. She is also a monster. Who would ever treat children this way except self-absorbed monsters? Her friends are right. It is warped.

Ideology Seen as Factor in Closings in University of North Carolina System

An advisory panel of the University of North Carolina’s Board of Governors has recommended closing three academic centers, including a poverty center and one dedicated to social change, inciting outrage among liberals who believe that conservatives in control of state government are targeting ideological opponents in academia.”

Leftist ideology was behind the establishment of these centers. Now that people other than leftists are in charge it’s going to change. The leftists don’t like it.

MEH. MOST EVERYTHING ABOUT UNIVERSITIES IS DRIVEN BY IDEOLOGY, SO WHY SHOULDN’T IT BE THE SAME FOR THEIR CRITICS: Ideology Seen as Factor in Closings in University of North Carolina System. “An advisory panel of the University of North Carolina’s Board of Governors has recommended closing three academic centers, including a poverty center and one dedicated to social change, inciting outrage among liberals who believe that conservatives in control of state government are targeting ideological opponents in academia.”

Yeah, because ideology had nothing to do with the establishment of those centers in the first place.

Here’s a lesson: Universities are like the trial lawyers. I’m not unsupportive of the trial lawyers, and I think that some reforms are unfair to plaintiffs. But when you align yourself exclusively with one party, and weaponize yourself in that party’s cause, you’re going to pay the price when the other party is in power. That’s the price you pay for whoring yourself out.”

The sovereign citizen movement is a loose grouping of American litigants, commentators, tax protesters and financial-scheme promoters. Self-described sovereign citizens take the position that they are answerable only to their particular interpretation of the common law[1] and are not subject to any statutes or proceedings at the federal, state or municipal levels or that they do not recognize U.S. currency and that they are “free of any legal constraints.”[2][3][4] They especially reject most forms of taxation as illegitimate.[5] Participants in the movement argue this concept in opposition to “federal citizens” who, they say, have unknowingly forfeited their rights by accepting some aspect of federal law.[6]”

Sovereign citizens sound more like anarchists than Conservatives.

They also note that members of the movement have committed violent acts and fraud. Referring to them as ‘Right Wingers’ is incorrect. In this report from CNN Carol Costello does what she can to smear conservatives with the Sovereign Citizen report.

Paul is old but he hasn’t gone away. He’s still preaching the same sermon he has for years.

Former Republican presidential candidate and congressman Ron Paul says secession is happening and it’s “good news.” Paul later predicted the states would stop listening to federal laws.
“I would like to start off by talking about the subject and the subject is secession and, uh, nullification, the breaking up of government, and the good news is it’s gonna happen. It’s happening,” Paul, the father of potential Republican presidential candidate Rand Paul, told a gathering at the libertarian Mises Institute in late January. The event Paul was speaking at was titled “Breaking Away: The Case for Secession.”
Paul said secession would not be legislated by Congress, but would be de facto, predicting “when conditions break down…there’s gonna be an alternative.”

Peters is right about this but what he says is incomplete. Harf does not come up with this idiocy on her own. What comes out of her mouth is scripted by the Department of State officials and they get their orders from the White House.

Harf is a sacrificial lamb. She is being destroyed by her superiors and she either doesn’t know it or she doesn’t care – it’s all or nothing for the revolution.

The fact that she came before a national television audience and spouted her inanities does not mean she made them up. It means she was sent out to say them. The only reason she would be sent out to look like a fool is to make the media, especially the media on the right, pay attention to her and distract from something else.

The largest organization of public defenders in the country is building a “cop accountability” database, aimed at helping defense attorneys question the credibility of police officers in court. The database was created by the Legal Aid Society, a New York–based nonprofit that represents an average of 230,000 people per year with a staff of more than 650 lawyers. The database already contains information about accusations of wrongdoing against some 3,000 NYPD officers, and is being used regularly by Legal Aid lawyers. The ambition behind the project is to create a clearinghouse for records of police misconduct—something the NYPD itself does not make public—and to share it with defense lawyers all over the city, including those who do not work for Legal Aid.”

… Do you want your boy to grow up to be a competent man? Do you reject the notion that kids should not handle dangerous tools? Do you want to prepare your kids for difficult times where they might need to actually do something helpful – and to think for themselves?

This does not apply to only boys but mostly boys will embrace the ideas.